Tag Archives: epic

36.1 \ 218

Posted on by under Greater Beyond

This is a dream, but everything in it feels real. He sees it from outside himself, but it’s happening to him. He is his great-grandfather, and he knows he’s heard this story, but right now it’s real. He’s hurrying somewhere carrying a child and a wooden box in his arms. The child is not his own, but the box is. The box contains a gun when he looks inside, but in real life the box was empty. He knows that what’s happening was going to happen. He could have stopped it, but he didn’t. Now he’s running, really feeling like he should have done something.

Draig wakes up in the high alarm of adrenaline rush. He hovered in liminality as he lay in his bed. He fell into and out of time-stretched scenes of panic, flames, and infuriation. Instead of subsiding, they increased in volume. There was a sudden feeling of something ripping open between his eyes, like a knife through canvas. With his eyes squeezed shut, he felt the tear open audibly further until he thought his eyes were open again, but he was looking at something he’d never seen before. He could hear people. They weren’t near and they weren’t far, they were either, along an interwoven organic lattice of dark-against-dark lines, so dark they were almost bright.

35 \ 217

Posted on by under Greater Beyond

I know that I’m not going to rise to the mountaintop to rule with a scepter. The mantle will not become mine. People won’t be looking to me for safety and hope, that’s fine. I’m marred and scarred, wounded and maimed beyond the body. I’m a figure of defiance and retribution. Not even those of my planet, who have looked to me to bring their justice to bear, would really see me as the organizing principle for the time of peace and prosperity. That was my father, back then, and I know the differences that life has made between us. It’ll have to be someone else, after this.

Nothing will be the same. All will grow far beyond me, yes, even the number one public enemy. So much for that, and I bid good riddance to all that I have fought. I can find somewhere to put myself besides stillfrozen stasis; not that that was anything like I expected, but I’m like no one they’ve ever known, guaranteed. I access a different dimension set than the kind of human I was when I was born, with my physiotechnological and neuromental adjustments – not something people should recommend to the ambitious, always a matter of facility in necessity. The benefits of existing as a freak occurrence were impressed on me by the random fortune of young catastrophic survival. I ran with it, and I can continue to do so when there is no use for me. I’m working toward that.

34.5 \ 216

Posted on by under Greater Beyond

They discussed job positioning and locale proximity. There were occasional breakout sessions to shift issue focus, during which a General might visit another’s ship for handshaking on matters that called for a personal touch. The Aquari General-In-Consult, Dancing Shimmer, had some info to relate on available intergalactic transport power, particularly the reservation allowance for at-will strategy. When General Claymore visited her ship as they settled details regarding burst focus, she looked in better health than recently, flush though distracted.

The King Proxem joined them at the last stage, to take in the summary and engage in wrap-up. After the ships had detached but were still in present space, King Vario came aboard the Alisandre vessel. It was then that he demanded higher levels of civic control than they had collectively strategized. This included detention without process, questioning, and increased punitive measures for a particular list of minor infractions. A chill passed over General Alisandre, who supported the plan as it already stood.

After a cursory listen to Claymore’s peer-supported reasoning, Vario insisted on his adjustments without explanation. The King Proxem also requested that they re-staff an extreme measures facility near the Capital, and to place him in direct command. That place hadn’t been used since the time of Claymore’s grandfather; this created a slew of alarming questions in the General’s mind. He would have to relay these as commands to the others, and he didn’t think he could grit his teeth any harder. This kind of confidential demand was the right of the monarch, and Vario’s insistence indicated reasons – but Claymore was unsure that there were any reasons he could accept for the implied possibilities of these actions.

The semi-randomized exit procedure gave Draig time to decompress. He’d been only mildly dissatisfied at the end of wrap-up, which in a job like his spelled appropriate restraint. However after the long session with King Vario, he was wondering in detail – for the first time – what life would be like without his position, and what his position would be like without him, particularly now. He could feel himself pulling back from his commanded duty like a horse that wouldn’t jump. He responded to occasional rollout broadcasts from his command post alone, while those incomprehensible, irresistible thoughts grew stronger.

34.1 \ 216

Posted on by under Greater Beyond, Uncategorized

This was the first nose-to-nose meeting called since the one after Draig’s induction. Utilization of this extreme-security linkage was a sign of the times. The guided-random location choice combined with time-sync en-route procedure was an expensive huddle, but one which may be necessary in utmost emergency. The current state of affairs had yet to approach that level, but now is the time to make sure the system is in place for this maneuver.

They’d been addressing individual action items for a while, with a few shifts in support focus. There was a rapid-fire efficacy to this form of high-pressure proximity. Discussions at a nose-to-nose resulted in immediate implementation, with personnel at attention and each General’s effective circles ready to mobilize.

Something about this instance was out of anyone’s control, and a little out of control. There was a current catching them all that General Claymore couldn’t fight, despite a mounting pile of internal objections.

Journal Diagram

Posted on by under Journal Slice, Uncategorized

During the making of this trilogy, one aspect of my process has been using diagrams to illustrate for myself patterns or motions of thought and action, to discern rhythm or structure of how certain story turns feel. It can be like a sieve through which details flow, or a puzzle mat that hints at how they should fit together; these separate steps that make the laying-down or connection of ideas easier, like tiling. The most concise and real explanation is the final product. Here’s another one.